


patented disaster

by kwritten



Category: Roswell (TV)
Genre: F/M, On the Run, Post-Canon, hard decisions, queen/huntsman dynamic, references to max/liz and maria/michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-05-26
Packaged: 2018-04-01 08:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4012564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>on-the-run fic; Michael and Liz are forced to make hard decisions they know they can't discuss with the others.</p><p>
  <i>Their roles have always been clear, even if they never admitted it before, even if no one sees it. Max is the healer, Isabel is the dreamer, Maria is the caregiver, Kyle is the person that keeps them human. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Liz is the banshee, foretelling death.<br/>Michael is the warrior.<br/>They are the first line of defense. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>They are the only line of defense.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	patented disaster

They run. 

All of them, they run. 

They run like they were born to run. Like it’s all they’ve ever done. And maybe that’s true. 

They stop because there’s only so long and far they can run.  
They stop in a little town outside of nowhere on the East coast in South Carolina.  
They stop because she says they are safe. 

Maria and Liz and Michael get jobs at a diner. The others get retail jobs in a local strip mall. They are new, but the town isn’t small enough to matter. They are wandering, which isn’t all that suspicious at their age. They settle in, Liz says that they are safe and so they are safe and they start to _live_ again. 

Of course they are found out.  
Of course. 

Liz dreams a dream of their death and capture. 

She wakes and pretends that she didn’t. She watches them, she waits. She says nothing. 

Michael comes to her, bursting through the hotel room door that she shares with Max as if there wasn’t a lock. It wouldn’t matter between them, anyway. “They’re coming.”

He’s always been a bit melodramatic. 

“We can stop it,” her voice is firm and resolved. She’s sure. She’s thought this through. “I have a plan.”

He nods, “Did you talk to Max?”

She doesn’t hesitate, she knows the right answer. “No.”

And it says probably more about them than about Max that he doesn’t argue. “So what’s the plan?”

She is grim, she is sure, she is strength and he takes a step back in deference, “We’re going to get caught.” She looks him square in the eye. “And we are going to kill them.”

They get caught in a video rental store, she’s seen it. So they go. While browsing the _action adventure_ section, she catches his arm, “We never tell Max. No matter what.”

He dips his head down to whisper in her ear, “We never tell Maria. No matter what.”

Their roles have always been clear, even if they never admitted it before, even if no one sees it. Max is the healer, Isabel is the dreamer, Maria is the caregiver, Kyle is the person that keeps them human. 

Liz is the banshee, foretelling death.  
Michael is the warrior.  
They are the first line of defense. 

They are the only line of defense.

 

Their plan goes well. They are caught. Michael kills their captors. Liz hunts down anyone left. They leave without a speck of blood on their hands, but their consciousness dripping. They share a secret and it doesn’t haunt them as much as the fact of it does. 

“I feel so guilty…” she says over French fries and beer while they are at a bowling alley. 

“I know,” he replies, looking towards the bar where Maria is smiling up at a bartender. “I hate keeping things from them.”

 

It feels shameful and it’s _theirs_ and that is what feels shameful. 

“God I feel like it’d be worse if I…”

“What?” she’s writing in her journal, her hair hanging loose around her face. He tucks a strand behind her ear and she shivers.

“It’d be worse if I kissed you.”

“Well that would be silly.”

 

“It’s not the body,” she says. She is sitting on a swingset in a park in the dark. They walk alone in the dark now. They know lots of things about each other that the others can’t now. They are sharing more now because there’s something between them that they can’t share. The dam has burst, all their secrets are held in the other’s heart and it doesn’t hurt the way they thought they would. “It’s that there’s something that he doesn’t know.”

 

The second time they kill she kisses him in the second after he feels the life seep out of their enemy. She pushes him against a wall and her lips are harder than he imagined – not that he has spent that much time imagining her lips, but if someone had asked him a week before, he would have said soft. He would have described her as soft, gentle, pliable. 

It’s her kiss that tells him she’s not. 

 

The third time they kill it’s too close and she’s covered in blood before it’s all over. He kisses her that time. Because she looks like a goddess on the hunt, she’s full of fire and he can feel that fire in his veins and so he reaches for it without even thinking about it. She’s even harder this time, he is carving her into a weapon and it’s everything he never thought he wanted. 

 

“We have to leave,” she has the hard voice of a general and it takes the rest of them by surprise. He stands at her elbow, slightly behind her, his arms crossed over his chest. 

“You two talked about this,” Max is hurt. He gets angry when he feels hurt. Michael can feel Liz harden. She doesn’t care this time, doesn’t go to comfort him.

That’s when they all know everything has changed. 

“Split up, all of us take different routes. We’ll meet in pairs,” Liz points to the map in front of her. “Isabel and Kyle in Bellingham, Washington. Maria and Max in Red Lake Falls, Minnesota. Michael and I in Swanton, Vermont. In two months exactly, Isabel will dreamwalk to check on all the groups. If we are all where we are supposed to be and safe, then we’ll move in pairs to another location, chosen at that time.”

“Why not choose now?” Kyle points to the map. “We’re all spread out, we’ll need a plan once we get there.”

Michael steps in, “She’s putting us all near the border. If anyone feels like they are being followed, cross into Canada immediately.”

“Why no burner phones?” Isabel says softly. “Why is this all on me?”

“If one of us gets caught and they have the phone numbers, everything is over,” Max’s tone is hard, brittle. He’s going to crack under the pressure. 

“But if Isabel…” Maria’s face is already red and puffy. 

“If you are at your meeting place and Isabel hasn’t contacted you within 72 hours, go to the local post office and ask for box 375. There’s a burner phone there. But _only_ get the phone if you don’t hear from Isabel, that’s super important,” Liz took a deep breath. “I have the phone numbers memorized and I’ll call you if that happens.”

“So if… if you are caught and so is Isabel…?” Maria reaches for Michael, but for the first time since he stole her car, he doesn’t reach back. 

“Then you’re on your own anyway. Run. Hide. Don’t try to find each other. Survive,” Isabel stands up and wipes her eyes. “If we are both gone, then just keep running.”

Liz nods, “There’s a plan A and a plan B. If they both fail, then you’re on your own.”

They don’t say long goodbyes. 

Max and Liz are the last to leave, she hugs him goodbye with dry eyes. “Will you find me?” he asks as he tucks her hair behind her ears. 

“Every time.”

Michael is waiting for her beyond city lines. They are supposed to travel alone on different routes in case anyone is hunting them. But they’ve been the hunters for too long now to go back. She takes his hand and they walk along the coast. They go South first to confuse anyone following. They lie on summer beaches and fuck in the sand under the moonlight. 

 

“We have to meet them,” she says after a couple of weeks. 

“We will,” his eyes are on the horizon, they are always looking ahead. She looks behind. That’s why they’re still alive. 

“Will it be the same as it was before?”

He looks down at her, curled up in his lap playing with his hands, “No.”

“But they won’t know that,” she never asks questions she knows the answers to. She is better with facts. 

He kisses the top of her head, “No. No they won’t.”

They’ll throw themselves back into the people they love when it’s time, on the assigned day Isabel will reach for them and they’ll be ready. Until then…

Until then they have one short summer on the beach, together.


End file.
